For married couples who eagerly want to be parents, a baby is the greatest gift of life and they would do anything to ensure the fetus develops healthily. Right now, most obstetricians conduct regular ultrasound scans on expectant mothers to monitor fetal health at hospitals or clinics. Yet, such examinations in a clinical environment cannot provide timely monitoring which gives parents the ultimate peace of mind. Inspired by the method of counting baby’s kicks to monitor fetal wellbeing, Prof. Jia You from the Department of Computing and Prof. Xiaoming Tao from the Institute of Textiles and Clothing collaborated closely to invent a Smart Fetal Monitoring Belt – a revolutionary and simple solution that safely detects and analyses patterns of fetal movement for continual monitoring of the baby’s health. Smart Fetal Monitoring Belt eases parents’ anxiety and meets the market needs.
Potential risks of ultrasound
Most expectant mothers have the first glimpse of their baby when they receive an ultrasound scan. In high-risk pregnancies, the baby’s heartbeat is also continually monitored during labour and delivery to detect any complications that require an emergency caesarean section. Although ultrasound scans have been performed on pregnant women for decades, ultrasound imaging is not without potential hazards. In recent years, most healthcare professionals share the view that ultrasound scans should only be used prudently for medically-indicated exams1. So, what are the alternatives if parents want to monitor a baby’s condition in mother’s womb? “Traditionally, counting fetal movements is a way to monitor the baby’s condition. But it’s subjective and you can’t expect the mother to keep track of it all day long.” said Prof. You.
Safe, comfortable, accurate
That’s why Prof. You and Prof. Tao invented a Smart Fetal Monitoring Belt that detects fetal movement with a revolutionary fabric sensor pad. According to Prof. You, “the soft flexible fabric sensor contains absolutely no metal parts and does not produce any radiation. It’s a non-intrusive, safe, reliable and comfortable way to monitor fetal health and screen abnormalities.” The belt is made up of three components – the sensor pad, a control card with an embedded powerful software that not only records the data of fetal movement, but also analyses data for monitoring over time. Signal patterns are displayed graphically on a small screen of the controller.
The belt operates in two modes – wired and wireless. In wired mode, the user is not exposed to any radiation including electromagnetic waves. In wireless mode, the belt is connected to smartphones via Bluetooth and data can be shared with multiple parties for different purposes. For instance, in a hospital setting, data can be relayed wirelessly to a network and healthcare professionals may monitor the fetal conditions of several expectant mothers real time from a distance. When used at home, the data are analysed by software with an alert system to warn the user of any abnormality in fetal movements, so that timely medical attention can be sought. Wirelessly shared data also let family members rest assured of the baby’s wellbeing anytime, anywhere.
“The sensor pad is made up of an array of sensors and the software’s powerful algorithms filter out the noises to achieve accurate fetal movement data. We conducted clinical trials at Guangzhou Women & Children’s Medical Center and collected more than 120,000 sets of data. By comparing fetal kicks reported by the volunteer subjects against the movement signals captured by the sensor pad, we found that the sensor’s accuracy ranges from 81.7% to 98.3%, which is highly encouraging. More importantly, both the volunteer subjects and the nurses feel so excited after trying our prototype and give very positive comments. We are now conducting large scale clinical trials at different hospitals,” explained Prof. You.
In April 2016, Smart Fetal Monitoring Belt won a silver medal and a special merit award at the 44th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, Switzerland.
[1] FDA. “Ultrasound Imaging” U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/MedicalImaging/ucm115357.htm#benefitsrisks on 1 Oct 2016.
